the guardian - 24 November 2000

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A flamboyant e-business pioneer, once ranked among the richest young millionaires in Britain, has seen his encryption technologies company fold with more than £1m of debts after a series of allegedly broken promises to creditors.

JOSEPH DE SARAM APPRECIATES THE USE OF THE WORD ‘FLAMBOYANT’ RATHER THAN CONTROVERSIAL, AND ALSO THAT IT IS THE ‘COMPANY’ THAT HAS FOLDED RATHER THAN VARIOUS OTHER PARTIES WHO HAVE WRITTEN ‘RHODIUM COLLAPSED’. JOSEPH DE SARAM DID NOT MAKE ANY PROMISES TO CREDITORS OF RHODIUM PLC THAT HE DID NOT HONOUR – IT IS NOT HIS PERSONALITY TYPE.

Joseph de Saram, 28, who last year shared 18th place on the Sunday Times’ young rich list with David and Victoria Beckham, founded Rhodium in 1995 after just two years as a graduate IT consultant. But this week more than five suppliers have secured the company’s liquidation after it failed to pay for a number of hardware orders.

JOSEPH DE SARAM WAS NOT A GRADUATE IT CONSULTANT, ALTHOUGH THE YEAR OF 1995 IS THE CORRECT YEAR.

Proceedings were first brought against the Sheffield-based firm by hardware sup pliers Info Techtronic, which is owed £205,000 and had received a number of “bouncing” cheques and promises of payment from Rhodium that were not kept.

JOSEPH DE SARAM DID NOT SIGN ANY OF THE CHEQUES AND IF CHEQUES BOUNCED THEN IT WAS AN ISSUE WITH THE WAY THAT HSBC BANK ATTEMPTED TO MANUALLY PROCESS THE CHEQUES AND THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MARGARET CUNNIFFE / BARNEY MARKHAM WHO WERE PHYSICALLY IN THE UK AROUND THAT TIME. JOSEPH DE SARAM WAS IN SRI LANKA AT VARIOUS TIMES FROM JUNE 2000 ONWARDS AND HE CONNECTED TO THE HSBC ACCOUNT OF RHODIUM USING HEXAGON. ACCORDINGLY, JOSEPH DE SARAM WAS NOT POSTING CHEQUES FROM COLOMBO TO LONDON EVERY DAY OBVIOUSLY. JOSEPH DE SARAM DID NOT PROMISE TO MAKE PAYMENTS THAT WERE NOT HONOURED AND IN FACT JOSEPH DE SARAM WAS PREPARED TO GIVE PERSONAL GUARANTEES WHILST HE WAS TAKING STEPS TO ASCERTAIN EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING ON IN RELATION TO THE TORTIOUS INTEREFERENCE AND INJURIOUS FALSEHOODS PROPAGATED BY NCIS / HMCE AND MI5.

A spokesman for the Leeds District Registry Court confirmed that Rhodium, which employed seven staff, had been compulsorily wound up. Next week a liquidator would be appointed and Mr de Saram, who is thought to be visiting friends in Sri Lanka, will be interviewed over the possible ways of retrieving creditors’ money.

RHODIUM PLC ACTUALLY EMPLOYED NO STAFF – THEY WERE EMPLOYEES OF THE IMMORTAL PLC. JOSEPH DE SARAM MADE HIMSELF AVAILABLE FOR THE LIQUIDATORS TO VISIT HIM AND HE CONFIRMED THAT HE WOULD PAY FOR THE FLIGHTS IF THAT WAS A LEGAL REQUIREMENT AS THE LIQUIDATORS HAD STATED. BUT THAT REPRESENTATION BY THE LIQUIDATORS WAS FOUND TO BE FALSE SO JOSEPH DE SARAM ASKED THEM TO COVER THEIR OWN FLIGHTS. FOR SOME REASON THEY COULD NOT BE BOTHERED AND INSTEAD CHOSE TO BRAND JOSEPH DE SARAM AS A FUGITIVE WHICH NICELY SUITED THEIR PURPOSES – THE JOURNALISTS FOLLOWED SUITE OBVIOUSLY AND IT WAS THEIR BEHAVIOUR THAT LED TO AN UNRECOVERABLE POSITION, IN WHICH JOSEPH DE SARAM’S MONEY WAS LOST.

Mr de Saram, who claims via the Rhodium website to be worth “in excess of $200m”, reportedly gave up his childhood ambition to become a neurosurgeon in order to “stretch his mind” by starting his own business.

UNFORTUNATELY, THE FACTS ARE THE FACTS REGARDLESS OF THE OPINIONS OF FOOLS. OBVIOUSLY THAT FIGURE BECAME DECIMATED AS A RESULT OF THAT WHICH OCCURRED TO RHODIUM PLC.

In March he told the Sunday Times that he was sceptical about the future of some internet firms.

“They lack substance,” he said. “They don’t have a balance sheet and their valuations are artificially high, based on hype.

THAT WAS QUITE TRUE – JOSEPH DE SARAM KNEW ABOUT THE NEOTERIC WORK HE WAS INVOLVED WITH AND THEREFORE WAS SPEAKING FROM DIRECT KNOWLEDGE OF THE SAME. JOURNALISTS HAVE A TENDANCY TO LOOK FOR PATTERNS AND FORM ANALOGIES FOR SOME REASON, TO HELP THEM NAVIGATE AREAS THAT THEY ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH. THIS IS EXEMPLIFIED IN ‘A IS TO 1, B IS TO 2’ ETC. IN RHODIUM PLC’S SITUATION, DIFFERENT CAUSAL AGENTS GAVE RISE TO A SIMILAR OUTCOME – THE CONCLUSION IS NOT THEREFORE THAT THE EXISTENCE OF THE SAME OUTCOME MEANS THE CAUSAL AGENT WAS THE SAME.

“There’s a lot of euphoria about now. I can see a Wall Street crash or South Sea Bubble burst.”

Rhodium will now join CitiKey, a wireless provider of restaurant and city guides, which has also been put into liquidation after burn rates reached an estimated $1m a month.

THERE IS NO RELEVANCE HERE, AS CITIKEY WAS SIMPLY SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY TO OBTAIN BUSINESS. RHODIUM PLC WAS IN ITS SIXTH YEAR AND THINGS WERE ON THE UP UNTIL JOSEPH DE SARAM WENT ON HOLIDAY TO SRI LANKA AND GOT FUCKED, MUCH LIKE WHAT HAPPENED TO MIKHAIL GORBACHEV AND ESSEX GIRLS GENERALLY ,

About 90 workers across Europe are expected to lose their jobs.

CitiKey filed for bankruptcy proceedings on Monday after plans to restructure the firm failed to get the backing of a two-thirds majority of the board.

The founders of the company, which was set up in 1998, were among those who rejected financial proposals from venture capitalist. It is thought that Atlas Venture and Crescendo Ventures had wanted to dilute some non-venture-capitalist shareholdings by up to a factor of ten.